One development seems particularly noteworthy from this week’s primaries: There looks to be an emerging democratic socialist faction at the State House based in Cambridge and Somerville.
Joining longtime Rep. Mike Connolly of Cambridge (who just beat a primary challenger to keep his seat) and Rep. Erika Uyterhoeven of Somerville (who just won the Democratic primary for outgoing Sen. Pat Jehlen’s seat) are very likely soon-to-be newly minted state representatives Ben Ewan-Campen and Will Mbah, also of Somerville—given that none of them face challengers in the November election. The first three are Democratic Socialists of America members and Mbah was endorsed by Boston DSA for Somerville City Council a couple of times in the past (and while it’s not a given that he will work closely with the others, they certainly all know each other and have similar politics).
They’re all individuals with their own brands of politics, and they would have had somewhat more clout if DSA pick Evan MacKay had succeeded in taking down Rep. Marjorie Decker in a closely watched Cambridge race, but it will be interesting if they can build a left-wing coalition in the General Court to get some better-than-average legislation passed … from the perspective of working families.
The going will not be easy for them at a time when the U.S. House of Representatives just denounced “socialism in all its forms” and with a fairly mainstream Democratic leadership dominating politics in the Mass legislature. Still, let’s see how much they pull together and what they can accomplish in the next two-year legislative session. Maybe not much or maybe a lot.
I will just add that BINJ.News readers may have noticed that we didn’t really cover the elections. That’s because we’re still too underfunded to do so alongside the investigative journalism and short features produced by our professional reporters and reporting interns.
In a couple of months we’ll be starting our big annual fundraiser; so I encourage everyone that wants to see election coverage from us in the future to consider donating when we ask for money in earnest between November 1 and December 31. Every dollar we raise expands our reporting capacity. Thanks.
Jason Pramas is executive director of the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism and editor-in-chief of BINJ.News.
